Re: Fear keeps archaic beliefs alive

TomS wrote:
"On Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:12:23 -0500, in article
<vPmdndMeO6jkGjzUnZ2dnUVZ_hKWnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Steven L. stated..."
John S. Wilkins wrote:
<slothrop1066@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Feb 21, 8:55 pm, j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
Rodjk #613 <rjka...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 21, 11:48 am, "Steven L." <sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jeffrey Turner wrote:
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/letters/ci_11754921
Fear keeps archaic beliefs alive
Letters
Posted: 02/21/2009 03:04:44 AM EST
Saturday, February 21
The Eagle editorial of Feb. 13 endorses Darwin's principle of
evolution as accepted science and urges those who espouse
"intelligent design," which is essentially the same as
"creationism," to keep their theology out of the schools, pointing
out that this controversy was aired in the Scopes trial 84 years
ago. We must ask why there is such a resurgence of
this and other archaic beliefs in the 21st century.
Fundamentalism, be it Christian, Muslim, or whatever faith, seems
to be rapidly rising in a sizeable minority, whereas scientific
enlightenment is slowly increasing in a much larger majority. Why
are we witnessing such intense polarities between contemporary
leaning and archaic leaning beliefs?
It is likely that contemporary life is triggering too much
insecurity in a vulnerable minority. In their panic about their
safety in the modern world, they actively revive very old ways of
magically feeling safe. If these ways worked to produce true
security so much the better, but they invariably don't work in the
long run.
Evidently this writer is unaware of the history.
The rise of the so-called "religious right" in America, began as a
backlash against the women's liberation movement. It was a backlash
against birth control (the Pill was invented in 1960), and against
the Roe v. Wade abortion decision of the Supreme Court in 1970,
which legalized abortion. And it was a backlash against
recreational sex which, combined with the Pill, enabled women to
engage in recreational sex without fear of pregnancy. All those
things had flourished in the 1960s and early 1970s; and by the late
1970s, the religious right movement was organizing to roll these
things back.
In the Muslim world, I see the same thing: When fundamentalist
Muslims take over a country, the first thing they do is reduce women
to second-class citizenship.
So I have come to regard this reverting to ancient religious
fundamentalisms (which originated in patriarchal societies) as a war
against female equality in the modern world--specifically, the right
of women to consider themselves as sexual beings in their own right.
So I don't think any "safety" provided by science is going to
deflect these kinds of religious movements. Indeed, the "safety" of
modern birth control and modern abortion has energized these
religious movements.
--
Steven L.
Email: sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
So...
You are saying that these religious movements are based in ... fear...
fear of the womens movement and fear of open sexuality.
Sounds familiar, seems I read an article recently on religious
fundamentalism and fear...let me see if I can find it.
:)
Religion is, in my opinion, an outworking of ape social dominance
psychology, which is all about control of mating opportunities. It's no
wonder that religions typically control access to women as mates.
And the more I learn I tend to lean towards that type of
explanation...would not any religious person (of the Western variety)
feel offended by such a notion?

I can't speak as to what others may find offensive, but if western
religions think that we are embodied, physical, beings, and they
typically do (theosophical revivals of gnosticism notwithstanding),
having a biological basis for religious beliefs is not, in itself, a
matter for offence. What would be offensive to them is the idea that
that is *all* there is to religious belief, a matter on which I cannot
possibly comment.

As to fear, one of the more obvious features about religion is how it
becomes embedded in the rationale for, and mode of enforcement of, the
status quo. It is by and large very conservative out of its very nature.
Hence any sudden sociopolitical change will trigger its defensive
reactions. Fear of modernism is merely one instance of that; and since
what counts as "modern" is a moveable feast, so to speak, what it used
to be defensive against (like heliocentrism) is now accepted and
uncontroversial. One day, evolution will not trigger such defences in
parts of the world. The "modern" always will.
But not always with the same vehemence.

Evolution is a particularly tough morsel for religions to swallow, because it strikes at the heart of their creation myths--and nearly every religion comes with a creation myth. If evolution is true, then Genesis is false, just a parable like Aesop's fables. The invention of the steam engine or nuclear energy or antibiotics wasn't anywhere near as antithetical to fundamentalism.

Not everything that is "modern" has struck so deeply at the heart of fundamentalism as evolution. As I replied in another post, in 19th century America, Christians were divided on the issue of slavery. Mostly it was Southern Baptists who supported slavery; most other Christians were opposed.

But when modern science has basically proven that Genesis is false, well, that's a tough one for Judaism and Christianity.

Your explanation has a plausible appearance. But I find some
problems with it.

One is that this reading of Genesis was not considered to pose a
problem with some varieties of racism. Racists could believe that
certain humans did not have descent from Adam. Yes, I know that
there were other racists who believed that Africans were descendants
of Ham, but there were others. Biblical literalists, it seems, are
rather flexible in which parts they take literally.

Another is that it isn't only evolution which causes problems with
Genesis.

You are correct.

And throughout history, any other scientific theory that appeared to cast doubt on Genesis was also strongly opposed by religious authorities:

-- The Copernican theory of the solar system

-- The geological theory of the true age of the earth

-- Georges Cuvier's theory that ancient species had gone extinct

Remember that the original creationists, like George MacCready Price, were furiously attacking mainstream geology even more than mainstream biology.


And then there is the problem that Genesis has nothing to say about
evolution, pro or con. It has nothing to say about fixity of species,
it has nothing to say about species - and *nobody* thought that it
had anything to say about species, not until about the 17th century.

What do you mean "it has nothing to say"???

First of all, it says God created all these different "kinds" of animals. It doesn't ever suggest that any of these "kinds" died out until the Noachic flood, long after Adam and Eve had been expelled from the Garden of Eden. This wasn't what Cuvier was finding in his fossils. And religious people were just as upset about that as today's creationists are about evolution.

Secondly, Genesis clearly states that in the beginning, there were only two humans, Adam and Eve. Adam was created from "the dust of the ground." Eve was created from Adam's rib. Initially, they were in a kind of near-angelic state, knowing nothing but goodness and living forever. Only after they ate from the wrong tree did they Fall from Grace and know evil; and Eve would bear children and so forth.

That's inconsistent with the theory of evolution, which states that Man was never in some near-angelic state, but evolved from lower hominids, who in turn evolved from some ape-like animal ancestor.

And that's the problem for fundamentalist Protestants. They see the Fall as central to their theology. To them, the Fall motivates the death of Jesus on the Cross: Jesus took on our Original Sin, which we inherited from Adam and Eve when they Fell from Grace, by dying on the Cross.

Jerry Falwell used to make exactly this argument: To him, the death of Jesus would have no meaning if Man never Fell.

This type of Christianity may go back to Calvin's theory of "total depravity," which one poster on this NG assured us was alive and well in fundamentalist churches today. In that theory, each of us is already cursed with that Original Sin from the Fall, from the very moment we are conceived in the womb. Only by finding Jesus can we absolve ourselves. And so that Original Sin--that Fall in the Garden of Eden--is the keystone of this theology.


My present guess about the source of anti-evolution is simply what
has been called "pithecophobia" - some people just don't like the
idea of being phyically related to apes. I know that their preference, that we were purposefully designed to be apes, should
really be *worse* - for it would tell us that God wanted us to be
very much like chimps and other apes.

That may be why some ordinary folks, who are neither well-versed in science nor well-versed in Christian dogma, are bothered by evolution. But that's not why the truly devout fundamentalists (which includes the creationists) are troubled by it. They have a legitimate theological reason to be bothered by it--their theology requires that Genesis be literally true. And the ToE says it isn't.

Fortunately, that's only a small minority of Christians. As you say, many Protestants haven't given the issue much thought; they don't spend their waking hours thinking about the doctrine of Original Sin. And the Vatican and Catholicism have a different philosophy of sin, so Catholicism doesn't seem to require a literal Fall to motivate Jesus dying on the Cross.


--
Steven L.
Email: sdlitvin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Fear keeps archaic beliefs alive
    ... evolution as accepted science and urges those who espouse ... engage in recreational sex without fear of pregnancy. ... against female equality in the modern world--specifically, ... one of the more obvious features about religion is how it ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Fear keeps archaic beliefs alive
    ... evolution as accepted science and urges those who espouse ... engage in recreational sex without fear of pregnancy. ... against female equality in the modern world--specifically, ... one of the more obvious features about religion is how it ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Fear keeps archaic beliefs alive
    ... evolution as accepted science and urges those who espouse ... engage in recreational sex without fear of pregnancy. ... against female equality in the modern world--specifically, ... one of the more obvious features about religion is how it ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Fear keeps archaic beliefs alive
    ... evolution as accepted science and urges those who espouse ... engage in recreational sex without fear of pregnancy. ... against female equality in the modern world--specifically, ... one of the more obvious features about religion is how it ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Double Standard
    ... work of a fiction writer whose creativity exceeds George Lucas, ... were using dry irony) I think that makes it a far superior read than ... And yet here you are reading stuff concocted by evolution ... confined to religion, my friend. ...
    (talk.origins)
Loading